PS 991 
.fll P63 
Copy 1 



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3.L1 



Entered according to act of Congress^ in the year i8y8, by C. Peter, ht the Office 

of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. ,<y^ ,* £_, // ^ p /f^ '^ 




.lorci^t 

POLEIMICS, 



If the most atrocious, and in its consequences, most pernicious swindle that ever 
was invented by hellbegotten "Divines," dares openly corrupt mankind into a pack of 
bloodthirsty pups of Bengal humanity : it seems to be expedient to enlighten the hu- 
man race in regard to the principles that ought to govern the humane affairs of this 
sublunar sphere, and to oppose with all might the aggressive movements of the enemies 
of liberty, especially in republican countries. 

As long as schools are upheld and liberally supported by stupid concerns, be they 
private, sectarian, or governmental, whose aim it is to corrupt the people's intellect and 
to propagate superstition : it becomes the duty of a free press to counteract the destruc- 
tive principles of an infamous doctrine which jeopardizes the public welfare, especially 
under the auspices of a Pio Nono, who now plays French Euchre with Louis Napoleon 
and bis Satanic Majesty. We give below the literal translation of a polemical pamphlet 
that has been written in fulminant Mene, mene Tekel style by a sincere and devoted 
lover of liberty, against the anathemata which, a few years ago, by the Oecumenical 
Council were hurled as diabolical curses against science and progress of our era. 
The "Syllabus" of Rome has been squarely met by the following 

^NTI-SYLIiABUS. 

For more than fifty thousand years, as science verifies. 
Our race was in existence, long afore the paradise ; 
Before the Bible was compiled, before Jehovah's "Fiat," 
As runs his myth, created heaven and earth and human riot. 
If revelation be reliable, it clearly demonstrates. 
That man was really living, sundry ages prior to his dates ; 
That heaven and earth existed for some periods of unnumbered years, 
Before the "Lord" saw fit to call them forth, as in his book appears. 
Ere of the tree of knowledge Adam stole the tempting fruit, 
No word was ever known of Eden's penal institute. 
Have priests and princes then run riot, as they do to-day, 
And has the Lord himself installed them, as they proudly say ? 
Perhaps it was not necessary — for behold of bees a hive : 
Among the busy workers drones conduct a useless life. 
Behold society, where oft a single "carthorse" pulls 
.The burden of a score of lazy beasts or empty skulls. 
The host of citizens, of working men who loil and strife, 
Are starving to support the pomp of idle princely life. 
Remember standing armies, mere consumers, horse and foot. 
Who must be clad and fed to make you rightless slaves to boot I 
Think of the mob of blackcoats who, to glorify the Lord, 
Are fattening in luxurious feasts, for lies in every word. 
Think of aristocrats, of Shylocks, millionaires, 
Their wives and children, their retainers, help and heirs, 
Whom one is bound to nourish by his ceaseless industry. 
Besides he must provide for scamps and tramps and villany : 
For beggars, swindlers, vagrants, burglars, robbers, thieves, 



t 



To drive him mad, if such his Christian duty he believes ! 

For all the goodfornothings who from honest labor run. 

The patient subject builds a poor-and pesthouse, all for fun, v 

Whilst all his agony no feeling heart allays, /lA 

Till driven to despair, he ends, a thief, his days. — y^^^^ix o. 

Thus was it from beginning, it appear*:, our race's doom : \ ^ yQ I ^ 

While some industrious went cheerfully to bench and loom, ^\ 

Midst all privations going through their thankless task, \i V 

There were some lazy villans, ever prone to ask \\ 

The means of living of their fellows, be it tax or tithe, 

For every community a pestilence and blithe. 

Whenever they were powerful, they passed their might for right, 

Enslaving the industrious by force and bloody fight. 

But were they less in numbers, then they took to perfidy. 

To gather surreptitiously their fellows property. 

By sophistry and scheming of all sorts they planted then 

With brazen cheeks the transcendental swindle into men. 

By teaching, that incomprehensible, but well brewed phrases 

Of man's salvation were the sole infallible head-bases. 

Thus ever since of old, twin powers of the government 

Held over man their sway without the Lord's assent : 

Hierarchy, potentates, devoid of heaven's will or grace. 

Have ruled the world by imposition on the luckless race. 

With what success they have discharged their duty in those days 

No one can tell, since Moses' Genesis no mention has. 

It by no means could have been worse than later on. 

When at the "Flood" (says Moses,) things were overdone, 

Since "heaven's representants" were so rotten, base and vile, 

That in his wrath his lordship drowned them, rank and file, 

But ages after ages since with fleeting time have passed 

And yet the starving peasant's lot is none the better cast. 

The Pariah of cities still, in spite of toil and pain, 

Earns but a scanty living and his struggles are in vain. 

The "better class" of mortals who exhaust and waste his force. 

Misusing and abusing him, insults his manhood worse 

Than demons, and destroys his earthly paradise, 

Till wild despair will drive him into crime and vice. 

All others live in joyful cheer and freedom's blessedness. 

Whilst he, despondent, drags his life through sorrow and distress. 

From nature's sumptuous banquet, well spread out for all the world, 

The needy is excluded, from the festive mansions hurled. 

What crime has he committed that he, like a pestilence, 

Be cast, as one polluted', from the halls of opulence 

By those who from their pedigree derive exclusive rights 

For chance of ancestry, for lordlings, dons and knights. 

Whose wealth, maybe, was gained by theft or piracy; 

Whose gems and pearls are bloodstained tears of penury ; 

Who hold some sinecure by right of consanguinity, 

Or nepotism's well-considered tricks of villany ? 

Tell me, ye rich and lucky, has it been the pauper's fault or blame, 

That you seduced his mother to a life of sin and shame ? 

What fathomless abyss of rank exists betwixt the two : 

Yourself and him, whose dames were ever satisfying you ? 

By money and glib-tongued, coined phrases, steeped in ribaldry, 

You have instilled your shame and bane in huts of poverty ; 

The priests' and soldiers' idleness and sham- celibacy 

Inoculates corruption's pest throughout Christianity. 

How dare you now condemn the poor, abused, neglected imps. 

The victims of your lust, the creatures of the lordly pimps ? 

Has not the indigent, oppressed, behind his wrinkled brow 

A brain, fit for development, his manhood to avow ? 



Does not beneath his soot and tatters throb a feeling heart. 

As sensible for goodness, as in agony to smart ? 

Full well you solved the riddle by impulses most humane ; 

To give him schools and churches to remove his mental stain ; 

But if you mean to help him and to mitigate his pain : 

You must improve his intellect on some superior plan. 

Let truth and knowledge conquer ancient superstition's place 

And make of him a useful member of the human race : 

Seal up the booths of claptrap's deadly virulence 

Which idiots long departed, have* imposed as "Testaments." 

To-day far better schools are needed than for drowsy "Rips : " 

They need resuscitation' from the "gospel's" dire eclipse. 

But whether the creator's boasted "Fiat" be correct, \ 

The second day creating light that never took effect — * 

Or two days later, he called forth the stars and sun and moon. 

To shine on earth and mark the hours of midnight, morn and noon — 

If God almighty had to rest himself for lack of breath, 

Because a week's attempt at speaking worried him to death — 

If Adam to his rib was wedded in some Gretna Green 

And then was kicked from Eden, since his appetite was keen — 

And if the likeness of the Lord, the first born son of man. 

Became a fratricide in paradise : an ugly Cain — 

If later lineages prove quite correct their pedigree. 

Where living, multiplying, dying in humility — 

If for the guilt of others Abraham his cutlass ground, 

To slaughter his own child, demented, superstition-bound — 

If Lot's fair daughters, not contented with their lot, 

Succeeded in committing incest with the sot — 

If in the famous writings of King Solomon are hints, 

Too far lascivious and obscene to fit the public prints — 

If by his hair suspended, Absalom adorned a tree — 

Or if the Jews had pilfered much, when putting out to sea, 

Then in the desert, since the Lord ordained the robbery, 

Were dancing round the golden calf right merrily — 

And if Jehovah drowned King Pharaoh with all his host. 

Whilst thieves and robbers were allowed to safely clear the coast — 

If Samson with his donkey's jawbone the Philistines slew-^ 

If good Rebecca taught her darling Jacob, till he knew 

To beat his blind progenitor perfectly out of sight. 

In order to inherit primogeniture's full right — 

If therefor to reward him, his Jehovah made the thief 

A "well to do" ringleader and of Israel the chief — 

If by a swallow old Tobias has regained his sight — 

If sick of Jonah, when that prince of whales felt very tight. 

He vomited him forth and presently was well and right — 

If Mary first conceived and then brought forth the son of man, 

And afterwards virginity became restored again — 

If Jesus has redeemed all sinners with an empty purse, 

So that the Inquisition too is free from ev'ry curse — 

If his first miracle was quite expediently brought out, 

When he converted water into wine for a tipsy crowd — 

If really he mixed dust with spittle in his hollow palm. 

And if the stone-blind man was cured by so divine a balm — 

If devils were obeying his peremptory behest 

And, spirited away, they turned the hogs'-heads to their best — 

If really the old maid, by entonitis overcome, 

By touching but his garment's seam, was healed and hurried home — 

If grizzly Nicodemus, of a sceptic turn of mind. 

Has found his recreation as a baby of some kind : — 

If all this bosh young folks are learning, when ten years of age, 

If all is comprehended clearly, mastered ev'ry page. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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If such instruction, patented 'and fullgrow 025 3gi Qoe « 

Their morals can improve, or knock them tiigner man u j^-n^,, ^JZ^ Jr. 

Weil, scheming priests, and "teachers of the people !" with your leave 

It almost goes beyond endurance, from its blight to free our race. 

The blind belief you dare impose on slaves as mental food, 

Has disappeared, you know, some time ago for mankind's good. 

But most disastrous was the crucifixion of the mind 

That you have offered to the child, to make it deaf and blind. 

Who but believes the tenth part of your myths and vapid lore, 

Gets robbed of reason, fit for logic thinking nevermore; 

Without to speak of that calamity and cruel crime. 

That progress lost so vast amounts of ill-spent, wasted time. — 

With stale and loathsome filth of lunacy you try to brave 

Achievements of triumphant science, mankind to enslave ? 

To poison youth's pure aouls, when floods of flaming, brilliant J light 

Awaken germs of wisdom, all ennobling, fair and bright ? 

To-day, when scholars who oppose or do not understand 

Our time's demands, unnoticed pass the sunlit land ; 

Where men of handiwork who keep instruction's light away, 

Go down, inglorious paupers,|in the battle of the day ? 

Away with'. Cabbala and Talmud, tokens of the darkest times : 

Erect for mankind schools of knowledge, suiting sunny climes ! 

With scornful pity we commiserate the ancient fools 

Who were the playthings of imposters and the tyrants' tools; 

We mourn the savans who, endowed with genius wide awake, 

Were butchered by religious monsters on the rake and stake. 

How would they glorify, beholding our own days' advance, 

How would they curse the age in which they were brought forth by chance 

If Socrates could reappear in these progressive days 

And see how darkness dissappears before instruction's rays : 

What exultation would the fearless truth-investigator feel, 

What inspiration would enrapture his rejuvenated zeal ! — 

Must men eternally depend from diabolic might, 

Instead of joyfully delighting in our era's light ? 

Should we, the scions of a glorious age retract our course, 

Exchanging progress for discarded pranks of brutal force? 

Away with medieval rubbish, rankness, mould and rust and rot ! 

Let mankind's genius aspire of lighted peaks the brightest spot ! 

Permit no single moment useless, fruitless pass away, 

Let gathering the golden harvest crown each glorious day ! 

Let not the minutes unimproved, unheeded flow. 

Your brow adorn the diadem that noble thoughts bestow ! 

Let not your children's uncorrupted intellect and heart 

Henceforth be robbed of modern science, literature and art ! 

If priestly rogues oppose you, tonsured, or in gown and robe. 

Reciting Bible-myths and psalms : then sing the progress of our globe I 

If they attack you with the crosier, council-curse and crucifix, 

To reconvert you to the adoration of the shrine and pyx : 

Then with the telescope and spectrum and electric light, 

Or steam, our era's willing servant, blow them out of sight ! 




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